adminThe temporary suspension was with immediate effect and came with conditions barring Malema from acting in the name of the league or the ANC, addressing any of its structures and speaking on matters pertaining to the party.
This was the second such meeting that had failed to take off.
A meeting initially planned for last Thursday was abandoned over fears that allowing Malema to address it would fall foul of the suspension conditions.
Northern Cape ANCYL chairman Shadrack Tlhaole said Monday’s meeting had been postponed because many of those expected to attend had other commitments.
“Many of us had commitments for Easter and could not disturb our programmes,” Tlhaole said yesterday.
“Please do not read anything more into this.”
When asked to comment on whether the meeting would take place, ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu said: “What meeting are you talking about? I don’t know anything about any meeting,” before ending the call.
Tlhaole, who has vowed to back Malema to the bitter end, had said on Sunday that the meeting would go ahead.
The gathering had been expected to provide an indication as to whether Malema had the continued support of his colleagues in the league.
“I think (the failure of the meeting to take place) is related to the current climate in the ANC. The youth league has clearly been advised it would be very unwise to hold a meeting,” said Professor Steven Friedman, research associate at Idasa and visiting professor of politics at Rhodes University.
“President Zuma has made it clear he will go for anybody who defies the ANC leadership, which is why Julius Malema was temporarily suspended,” said Friedman.
“In that environment, a meeting of the youth league would probably have forced them to back down in a humiliating way or would have forced them to defy Zuma and get slapped with disciplinary charges. So they probably decided not to have a meeting.
“The youth league could be divided among themselves, but we have to remember that this youth league leadership is really acting on behalf of senior ANC members in one of the ANC factions and it could well be that the people who have been directing them . . . have persuaded them it is not a good time to hold a meeting . . . to
hold fire and see how things develop.”’
Dr Somadoda Fikeni, political analyst and honorary professor at Unisa, said the youth league’s failure to meet could be the result of fragmentation because of a lack of unity on how to respond to current challenges.
“They might be paralysed, knowing that once there are different positions coming from within the league itself, and they cannot take a unanimous position, it becomes risky to even hold a meeting.
“However, at the same time, to be silent will equally be interpreted as a league that is divided,” Fikeni said.
“A youth league seen to be divided cannot then pursue its agenda prior to the policy conference to say: ‘Here is our programme’ or ‘We prefer this or that candidate’.”
Fikeni said the league also found itself in an awkward position in relation to some of Malema’s utterances.
“In particular, they might find it difficult to find unanimity on his comments that President Jacob Zuma is a dictator. This might have created a very awkward situation where some members might be saying: ‘We did not sanction this kind of language’,” Fikeni said.
“The second issue is that Malema has now given the signal that he is taking the process to court — and that would mean he is working outside the existing ANC framework.
“This could create another dilemma, where the youth league could say ‘We support his appeal to the ANC’s appeals committee’, but once he goes to court and gives the ANC 24 hours to respond, the youth league may not know how to respond, as he is doing this as a private citizen, more than as an ANC member,” Fikeni said.
It was reported last week that Malema’s defence team had written to the ANC’s national disciplinary committee (NDC) demanding it withdraw the suspension or face Malema in court.
However, a source close to the defence said they would exhaust all internal processes before considering court action.
Advocate Patrick Mtshaulana has reportedly written to NDC chairman Derek Hanekom slamming its gagging decree as akin to an apartheid-era “banning order”.
Fikeni said the league might be struggling to adopt a unanimous position. “The reason the youth league did not issue a firm formal statement after Malema’s immediate suspension last week might be because they do not have a unanimous position and that might be why they did not meet.”
Malema was suspended from the ANC with immediate effect last Wednesday after he described Zuma as a dictator.
Hanekom said fresh charges would be put to Malema within 30 days.
Malema is appealing against his expulsion from the ANC for bringing the party into disrepute and for sowing division. The appeal hearings are to take place tomorrow. If his expulsion is upheld, the new charges will fall away.
Meanwhile, calls to Malema’s cellphone were met with the following message: “At the end of everything else, we will not remember the words uttered by the enemy against us, but will remember the silence of our friends during these difficult times. Never surrender, never retreat. Victory is certain. This mailbox is not accepting messages. Goodbye.”
Meanwhile, Malema and three others were ordered by the Western Cape High Court yesterday to file responding papers to a defamation case lodged by DA leader Helen Zille.
Judge Nathan Erasmus ordered Malema, ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu, Khayelitsha councillor Andile Lili and the youth league to file their discovery affidavit by 24 April.
This affidavit formed part of a pre-trial process in which both parties could “discover” pertinent facts about evidence and witnesses to build a case.
The defendants had only filed a notice of intention to oppose the case and their plea in response to the summons issued in May 2010.
Erasmus ordered them to supply an address to which documents could be served, as there had been difficulty in locating them.
The judge expressed disbelief that the sheriff had difficulty getting hold of the respondents, saying he could have located them himself simply by reading newspapers.
“I consider it amazing that I see these people apparently all over the show and the sheriff can’t find them,” he told the court.
“Malema, I saw in the papers, was in church on Good Friday and Shivambu is in the news every day.”
The judge said it was inexcusable that individuals chose to ignore court orders, potentially bringing the justice administration into disrepute.
“Court rules are there to be complied with by everyone. All litigants must be treated equally.”
He ordered the defendants yesterday to pay punitive costs for Zille’s application for the court order.
Zille was suing the youth league and its members for R1.4m, for comments made about her and the Democratic Alliance from 2009.
She said Shivambu had called her a “racist girl” and “sick woman” and claimed that her all-male executive were her boyfriends and concubines.
She also took issue with Malema calling her executive council a “group of racist Helen Zille garden boys” at a rally in Cato Manor, Durban, in February 2009.
At the same rally, he apparently referred to her as a “racist”, “colonialist” and “imperialist”.
Lili was also accused of calling her a racist in January 2010.
The group had yet to apologise or retract their statements.
In a special plea document, Malema stated that all his statements had been made in the spirit of freedom of expression, in a political capacity.
He stated that he and Zille were both public figures and thus engaged in public debates.
He contended that he had been the victim of an insult by Zille, in which she called him an “Inkwenkwe” or young uncircumcised boy in 2009. — Sapa/ www.iol.co.z
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